Setting sail with Ryan Murphy's new series Doctor Odyssey has been one of the highlights of the year. Now that the ship is back in the harbor for the winter break, here's everything you need to know about when new episodes of Doctor Odyssey will return.
Doctor Odyssey will return with new episodes on Thursday, March 6, at 9 pm ET/PT, sandwiched between 9-1-1 season 8 at 8 pm ET/PT and Grey's Anatomy season 21 at 10 pm ET/PT.
The fantasy-laden medical drama set on a luxury cruise ship features Joshua Jackson, Philippa Soo, Sean Teale and Don Johnson. It has been one of the brightest spots in the 2024-2025 television season with its over-the-top medical emergencies and larger-than-life weekly episode themes like Singles Week, Plastic Surgery Week and Gay Pride Week.
Though it's billed as a medical drama, it's impossible to watch Doctor Odyssey without thinking about its parallels with The Love Boat, ABC's original nautical drama that ran from 1976 to 1987 featuring weekly guest stars and some of the sultriest exploits on the seven seas.
Doctor Odyssey gives a reverent nod to The Love Boat and then tells the classic series to hold its beer as it raises the ante to new heights with medical emergencies that range from somewhat common (as in an appendectomy, albeit one performed in the middle of a roiling storm at sea) to unusual (as in more than your garden variety skin conditions that could ruin cruise selfies) to outright rare (John Stamos suffered from super-rare auto-brewery syndrome, which made his recovering alcoholic character seem like he was drunk). You can almost see Murphy and his team of writers pouring over medical journals looking for the most unusual diagnoses to include in their stories.
Fans are having a ball trying to figure out if the show's over-the-top antics are even meant to be real; the show's main character, Dr. Max Bankman (Jackson), was one of the first people to be diagnosed with Covid at his hospital and slipped into a coma as a result. This has led to theories that the show is actually a prolonged fever-dream, to the extent that the Odyssey itself could actually be the afterlife.
Needless to say, March 2025 can't come soon enough because we're all ready to set sail with new episodes of Doctor Odyssey.
